scholarly journals Under The Spotlight: The Impact of Media Attention on Protest Policing

1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Wisler ◽  
Marco Giugni

Explanations of protest policing have neglected the "spotlight of the media." Based on data on repression and its media coverage in four Swiss cities from 1965 to 1994, our findings suggest that the mass media do have an impact on levels and forms of repression, along with political opportunity dimensions and levels of disruption. We identify two mechanisms. First, we show that the symbolic battles waged by protest groups and their outcomes affect the level of repression these groups face. More specifically, depending on whether the civil-rights or the law-and-order scenario wins in the public sphere, the police adopt different postures when facing disorders. Second, the police are also shown to be vulnerable to an increase of media attention during a protest campaign. When protest becomes a blind spot in the public sphere, repression increases.

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Beyeler ◽  
Hanspeter Kriesi

This article explores the impact of protests against economic globalization in the public sphere. The focus is on two periodical events targeted by transnational protests: the ministerial conferences of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Based on a selection of seven quality newspapers published in different parts of the world, we trace media attention, support of the activists, as well as the broader public debate on economic globalization. We find that starting with Seattle, protest events received extensive media coverage. Media support of the street activists, especially in the case of the anti-WEF protests, is however rather low. Nevertheless, despite the low levels of support that street protesters received, many of their issues obtain wide public support.


British Gods ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 144-181
Author(s):  
Steve Bruce

In the 1930s, Bolton was the site of Mass Observation’s first major research project, and subsequent restudies allow us to track in detail the decline of Christianity in the town. It was also the site of the first major Muslim demonstration against Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. The reaction of Boltonians to Islam is discussed as an introduction to wider consideration of the impact of the growth of Islam in Britain. Detailed discussion of media coverage of Muslims and of attitude survey data makes the case that, while some British people dislike Islam, a more powerful trend is growing hostility to any religion that is taken seriously enough to intrude on the public sphere.


Author(s):  
Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

This epilogue comments on the changes within the Polish American community and the Polish-language press during the most recent decades, including the impact of the Internet and social media on the practice of letter-writing. It also poses questions about the legacy and memory of Paryski in Toledo, Ohio, and in Polonia scholarship. Paryski's life and career were based on his intelligence, determination, and energy. He believed that Poles in the United States, as in Poland, must benefit from education, and that education was not necessarily the same as formal schooling. Anybody could embark on the path to self-improvement if they read and wrote. Long before the Internet changed the way we communicate, Paryski and other ethnic editors effectively adopted and practiced the concept of debate within the public sphere in the media. Ameryka-Echo's “Corner for Everybody” was an embodiment of this concept and allowed all to express themselves in their own language and to write what was on their minds.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-223
Author(s):  
Sean M. Williams

This commentary responds to an article by Melissa Grant, Lucy Vernall and Kirsty Hill in Research for All (Grant et al. , 2018) that assessed the impact of broadcast programming through quantitative and qualitative evidence. In that piece, the authors attended exclusively to the uptake by, and attitudes of, end users. But viewer or social media statistics can paint a patchy picture, and feedback groups recreate an unusually attentive mode of reception. This commentary argues for an alternative or complementary emphasis on the participation of academics in producing broadcast programming for the purposes of writing REF impact templates. In highlighting the process of programme-making rather than the reception of a completed output, the commentary seeks to 'read' academic impact on the media in a more dynamic way, and speaks to the sometimes substantial and substantive involvement of academics prior to a programme's broadcast and its ultimate effects in the public sphere. Indeed, a focus on the 'front-loaded' impact by academics in the media, and on their longer-term institutional ripple effects, offers evidence that is more easily captured than establishing the attitudes of audiences. The latter are notoriously difficult to determine and, as Grant et al .'s (2018) data show, do not always do justice to the importance of media work as part of impactful academic activity.


2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Gonzalez

This contribution addresses the anti-minaret referendum accepted by the Swiss people in 2009, using data drawn from the main television news program in French-speaking Switzerland. The analysis tries to point out ambiguities in the media coverage of this referendum and to show how increasing the Muslims’ visibility worked against their public recognition. The clarification of the concept of visibility pays attention to the ways in which certain actors (politicians of the nationalist right) force others (the Muslims of Switzerland) to appear in the public sphere, creating controversy and publicizing their identity aspirations. This investigation leads to an inquiry on the normative conditions necessary for democratic debate.Cette contribution revient sur l’initiative anti-minarets acceptée par le peuple suisse en 2009, à partir de matériau provenant du principal journal de la Télévision suisse romande. L’analyse tente de ressaisir les ambiguïtés inhérentes à la médiatisation de cette initiative et de montrer comment la visibilisation des musulmans a joué en défaveur de leur reconnaissance publique. L’élucidation du concept de visibilité se veut attentive à certaines formes d’instrumentalisation par des acteurs (des politiciens de la droite nationaliste) qui en forcent d’autres (les musulmans de Suisse) à apparaître dans l’espace public, afin de susciter une controverse et publiciser leur programme identitaire. L’enquête débouche sur une interrogation relative aux conditions normatives nécessaires à la tenue d’un débat démocratique.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Pedro Lourenço

Data portals are being created as part of open government strategies to increase transparency. But although the potential of the internet to increase transparency (as data disclosure) has been widely considered in the literature, there is no reported evidence of any of the released data actually being used by their ultimate recipients (citizens) for public accountability purposes. This descriptive research effort aims to find evidence of the impact of open government portals, asserting whether data is indeed being used and for what purposes. One contract portal was selected and Google Search was used to find portal references on the internet. A qualitative content analysis approach was adopted, whereby references were examined with respect to its main purpose and data usage. Evidence was found of contract data being used, among others, to identify possible situations of corruption, nepotism and misusage of public resources, support argumentation on public policy debates and, in general, to hold public officials accountable in the public sphere through ‘blame and shame' sanctions.


Author(s):  
Lene Rimestad

Columns generally take up a lot of space in the media. But what can an employed journalist write in his column? How is this particular freedom managed and shaped? In this article the columns written by journalists working for Berlingske Tidende are analyzed. The analysis covers two months before and after substantial changes in the paper in 2003. Two parameters are used in the analysis: Political: Is the column pro-government, anti-government, apolitical or mixed. And what sphere does the column cover: Does the column take place in the private sphere or the public sphere? Finally the changes in the period are discussed. But initially the column as a genre is defined.


Antichthon ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 156-172
Author(s):  
James S. McLaren

AbstractDuring the late republic and early principate the Jews who called Rome their home occasionally found themselves in the public gaze. Some of their customs and aspects of their ways of life also attracted occasional comment, often for their apparently strange and foreign manner. At no stage, however, during this period did they feature prominently in the public sphere of life in Rome. The aftermath of the war of 66-70 CE brought about an abrupt change in circumstances for the Jews living in Rome. Apart from the immediate visual celebration of the triumph, there followed a number of substantial monumental and numismatic commemorations of the Roman victory. In this article the purpose and function of those commemorations and the possible consequences for the Jews who lived in Rome are examined. In particular, the impact of the public profiling of the war on Jewish identity and of how the writings of Josephus are to be read in this setting is explored. Rather than regard Josephus as a supporter of the Flavian rulers, writing an account of the war that encouraged fellow Jews to collaborate with Rome, it is argued that he was offering Jews in Rome a counter-narrative to the way the war was being publicly commemorated.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Ayish

Communication has proven to be an integral component of the terrorism phenomenon. To unravel the opportunities and challenges embedded in employing the media during terrorism, this chapter draws on research findings and practical experiences around the world to identify prime actors associated with this issue and to describe their objectives, tactics, and channels of communication. It is argued here that media constitute a vital resource in the war on terror with both terrorist organizations and states harnessing communication to advance their causes in the public sphere. In this context, four categories of media users have been identified: media institutions, terrorist organizations, governments, and citizen groups. The chapter discusses enduring issues associated with each actor's use of media and calls for evolving new conceptual frameworks for understanding media use during terrorism. It concludes by arguing that while we seem to have a huge pool of research findings and practical experiences related to using the media during terrorism, we seem to have a critical shortage in how we conceptually account for the different variables that define the use of media in terrorism situations.


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